The People of the Sikes
Whilst it is widely accepted the Sykes name derived from someone living close to a water course it is evident from those quotes overleaf there are contesting versions of the meaning, principally between upland and lowland versions. Both versions are plausible and may indicate there was no single source of the Sykes name. Faulds and Moorhouse, in their seminal work on the archaeology and history of West Yorkshire, came down definitively on the lowland interpretation, but offered only a very particular interpretation based upon the lowland sike1. It is puzzling why they focussed only upon this and even more so why they chose to illustrate it with an example from Laxton in Nottinghamshire when both the surname and place-name were abundant in West Yorkshire. Nonetheless it is worth considering their explanation in some detail.
The Lowlanders
Laxton manuscripts at the University of Nottingham offer yet another variation on the meaning of “sike”: “Unploughed area in an open field, usually low lying and damp and unsuitable for ploughing, where grass grows”. F&M’s explanation suggests the sike was a feature of open field agriculture that offered rich grazing to livestock. A productive grass strip in the middle of an open field system is probably the last place you would expect to find someone dwelling, but F&M argue the surname “Sykes” may have been adopted by people living in minor settlements which grew up near the water course. This interpretation raises some obvious queries, would these have been individual dwellings or small hamlets where everyone became known as “Sykes”? By definition the open field itself rarely contained dwellings, the classic lowland English village layout (like Laxton) had dwellings with crofts at its centre surrounded by large open fields and beyond them “waste”, commons and woodland. True there are variants on this theme but it seems F&M are suggesting Sykes would live in designated dwellings for occupation by specialist “sike keepers” outside the village centre? If so the Sykes name is becoming as much occupational as topographical.
Some support for F&M’s view may come from the number of “Syke House Farms” located on the edge of lowland villages. A rapid internet search reveals “Syke House” and “Syke Farm” are widespread but not numerous, with examples as far apart as Ayrshire and Pembroke, but predominantly they are in northern England. An assessment of nine examples in the West Riding, using 1851 OS maps (6” series), reveals a particular concentration of such names just north and east of Leeds. Their relationship to the field system is however not consistent, four were located around the edge of former open fields, three amongst older enclosures and assarts and two on the edge of enclosed commons. At Barwick-in-Elmet, where Syke House Farm is clearly on the edge of former open fields, “Suwynsick” (Swinesike) was recorded as early as 1285[1]. Sike House in Penistone is located on the edge of fields enclosed in 1819, but Jeffries map of 1770 shows this area, 850 feet above sea level, was then unenclosed moorland and rough grazing, not arable fields[2]. The majority of extant buildings in each of these locations appear post-eighteenth century and there is no obvious evidence to suggest earlier dwellings preceded them. However the cluster around north Leeds however does correlate with some early examples of the Sykes surname and should not be dismissed as potentially early locations of the surname.
Interestingly the Laxton manuscripts glossary describes the pronunciation of “sike” as “sick”, which gives credibility to Dyson’s description of a Midlands variation and negates its probability as a source of the Sykes name2.
Sike Makers
We’ve suggested above there may be an occupational element to the Sykes name. In 1456 William Dayle, a tenant of Brakenbargh near Sand Hutton, York, gave evidence in a disputed land deed of 1456 concerning the Lascelles family. Dayle provided a detailed explanation of the widespread traditional practice of making and maintaining a boundary syke[1]:
“whyche syke was wonte in my time and in my fadyr days as he sayd to me, to be drawn with a plow for a mere on that syde bytwene Sand Hoton and Brakynbargh”.
So to construct or maintain a sike they harnessed horse or oxen and ploughed a line which would fill with water and create a “mere” or boundary. Dayle’s two pages of evidence describe the landscape either side of the boundary but it is a landscape of fields, he makes no mention of a dwelling house nearby. Neither does he suggest that sike drawing and managing was a specialist occupation after which someone may be named. Making the sike was just one of the numerous routine agricultural tasks of medieval England.
Uplanders & Inbetweeners
Both upland and lowland sikes supported livestock grazing, whether this was lush meadow in the lowlands, or more meagre but highly valued grazing, for cattle and horse in the uplands. At this period the uplands and forests still contained wolves so sheep were primarily kept on lower lands closer to humans were they were less vulnerable to attack[1]. There are therefore quite distinct upland grazing patterns; cattle grazing at 300m and above, sheep grazing around the 200m contour or below. Table 3 demonstrates the correlation between some sike areas and the locations of medieval vaccaries or extensive cattle and sheep grazing and denotes their designation as either upland or lowland. Many of the extensive upland grazing areas contained shelters or “booths” where shepherds and herdsmen had temporary dwellings whilst they undertook the seasonal tasks of managing livestock on behalf of the lords of these upland manors. In this context “sikes” could be defined as a description of a particular type of landform used for extensive grazing rather than a specific lowland boundary stream. This would seem a more likely place to find John of the Sikes or John atte Sikes whose name would have identified them as itinerant livestock handlers.
A variation on the upland model is found around the South-West Yorkshire Pennine fringes (Holme, Colne and Dearne Valleys), an area dominated by steep cuesta slopes with plateaus of semi-improved moorland or rough commons. Sike features and place-names are found abundantly at or about the 240 metre (850’) contour, lower than the northern uplands but still describing a small stream draining a marshy summit. The 1854 Ordnance Survey Map shows “Scholes Moor”, a former open common on a wide plateau, south-east of Holmfirth. Around the edges we find Sike Lane and Sike House but no named sike. The contours however clearly show sike type streams draining both eastwards and westward into tributaries of the River Holme, matching perfectly descriptions by Dyson and the Durham surveyors.
Scholes is a particularly interesting location because it is a common place-name element in the West Riding and old Norse areas of the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales, derived from an old Norse term scali, “the sheds or shielings” (mentioned 1274) meaning temporary shelters which would have housed seasonal herdsman[3]. Hepworth township is adjacent to Scholes and between the two “Schepewassegrene” [sheep wash green] was mentioned in a 1307 court roll signifying the place where sheep were washed prior to their wool being clipped[4]. Three miles east of Scholes is Shepley, a place-name derived from Old English meaning “sheep clearing” (sceap, leah; 1202) or the clearing where sheep are kept[5]. Two sikes drain this high boundary ridge and flow east into the headwaters of the River Dearne, passing Sike Bottom and Sike House. These examples demonstrate a correlation between “sike” features, sheep grazing and the temporary, seasonal dwellings of early shepherds, usually between the 200m -300m contours. Most of these areas show evidence of pre-nineteenth century settlements in the immediate vicinity, some of which are clearly of antiquity, for example Coldhill at Almondbury (200m) with its “Sykes Close” fields, was an established farm by the late thirteenth century when it was occupied by Thomas del Sicke, which makes it a contender for an early source or host of the surname[6].
Comparison of pre-1400 Sykes surnames locations with upland topographical features shows a correlation in Langfield, Almondbury, Grinton, Bradford, Bingley, Baildon, Langcliffe, Bowland, Quick, Emley, Holme and Inbirchworth, which make up approximately two-thirds of all early Sykes locations[1]. The landscape of lowland settlements at Fishlake and Pollington on the Humber levels, although very different in altitude, was also dominated by marshy conditions which necessitated seasonal removal of livestock in winter. Grazing the extremes of lowland settlements to some extent shared a common skill set and work cycle as upland graziers. It is logical to presume both may also have earned a similar descriptive surname – “at the sike”– indicating they were seasonal itinerant workers who managed livestock in adverse conditions. It is feasible therefore the Sykes surname developed independently in these separate landscapes, but it also leaves open the possibility Sykes individuals were able to move easily between employment in both upland and lowland regimes. In short, there is nothing to indicate the Sykes surname emerged in any one particular place, but it is likely it indicated much more than just “a dweller by the stream”.
[1] See Table 5
[1] Sheep keep on lower lands ref
[2] Caron Egerton Newman, “Mapping the Late Medieval and Post Medieval Landscape of Cumbria” Vol 1. PhD thesis
Newcastle University, 2014 quotes Winchester saying the “scale” term may be more complex but always means a low value building, nevertheless it is routinely associated with vaccary sites. (“Shep” roots can be found all over the country, from the Isle of Sheppy in Kent, Shepton Mallet in Somerset to Shepshed in Leicestershire
[3] Kenneth Cameron English Place Names 77 (1977) EPNS WRv2 pp247-8 (Smith 1958)
[4] F&M p763
[5] Ibid Cameron pp 44 & 144 & Smith pp250-4
[6] Thos del Sicke in Almondbury – 1297 Lay Subsidy & Hirst
[1] “Some Lascelles Deeds and Evidences” (YAJ Vol 2 pp 92-3 ,1873)
[1] http://www.barwickinelmethistoricalsociety.com.Cooper A.H., Syke House Farm, Barwick-in-Elmet (;British Geological Survey, Internal Report CR/06/138. “Copple Syke Spring” is named on the 1850 OS map but on modern maps it is renamed as “Potterton Beck“
[2] See map extracts (appendix x)